The thing about Grunt
by ImplicationsProblematic
Summary: So the idea behind this is that, sometime between ME2 and ME3, Shepard is reminiscing about her crew and describing them to someone- maybe it's Vega, or Anderson, or Kaidan even. I'd quite like to do the rest of the crew as well, but we'll see.


-So the idea behind this is that, sometime between ME2 and ME3, Shepard is reminiscing about her crew and describing them to someone- maybe it's Vega, or Anderson, or Kaidan even.

I'd quite like to do the rest of the crew as well, but we'll see.-

Grunt? Haha, Grunt is something else. The original plan was to enlist a Krogan Warlord named Okeer— no other species lends a groundteam quite as much… fury. We had skilled biotics and great shots, but there's nothing quite like a Krogan in a blood rage to scatter an enemy. So we headed to Korlus in the Imir System to recruit him. He had some sort of arrangement with a Blue Suns commander named Jedore— well, I say an arrangement; basically Okeer was supposed to be providing her with an army of full size, tank—bred Krogan soldiers, but he was only really interested in his own experiments. Okeer was obsessed— and I do mean _obsessed_— with creating a perfect Krogan specimen. Most of the Krogan I've met have been pretty big on the whole _prizing strength above everything else_ thing, but Okeer was _fanatical_ about it. And when he'd finished… _engineering_ and _distilling_, he'd let them out—but they'd never be good enough. So he let Jedore have his rejects— if they weren't perfect they were nothing to him. Pretty sad really.

Anyway, long story short, Jedore got sick of Okeer's games; his cast off soldiers weren't good for anything except tearing holes in her existing forces. So around the time we arrived, Jedore decided to pull the plug on the lab and Okeer told us that he'd cooperate fully if we stopped his work— his '_legacy'— _from being destroyed. By the time we finished with the mercs, the toxins Jedore flooded the lab with had finished Okeer off and we'd lost our planned Krogan recruit. But his one perfect soldier, the legacy he died saving, was still there in the tank. '100% refined Krogan fury' he'd said. I figured that had to be worth a look, so we took him with us, tank and all.

There was more a than a little concern voiced by the rest of the crew— Miranda and Jacob were particularly worried, which I kind of liked at the time, I still wasn't sure whether I could trust them. But we cracked open the tank anyway. I mean come on, how could I not?

Looking back, I probably should have waited until we'd landed somewhere rather than run the risk of a confused Krogan tearing a hole in the bulkhead mid FTL— but it was fine. Well, it was a little hairy for a moment; he had me shoved up against the wall with a hand around my throat in seconds. But he was pretty easy to talk round— and the gun I had wedged against his stomach seemed to endear me to him.

The thing about Grunt… yeah, he came out of that tank ready to set the world on fire— and more than able to do so, but he was… I don't know, _lost_. He might have been nearly adult physically, but he was weeks old— _a baby_. A very large, violent, blood crazed baby— but he came out into the world without any real idea of how it worked… He was Frankenstein's Creature… all Okeer had tried to 'teach' him was fury.

Joker used to take the piss— call me _Mama Shepard_. I think there was probably some truth to it actually— I suppose I did feel like his Mum sometimes— although the term we went with was _Battlemaster_. I remember this one time I found him playing with action figures— I swear to God. He could crush a human skull without blinking, but there he was with his _toys_. He was embarrassed of course— have you ever seen a Krogan blush? I have. Freaking adorable, in a threatening sort of way. I just smiled and left him to it, but later on I called him up to my cabin and showed him my model ships— he _loved_ that. I got some out to show him and he accidentally snapped the wind off a Turian frigate. So we picked up a new one on Ilium and built it together. Well, he watched mostly— Krogan hands, y'know? But he enjoyed it— and so did I. It felt… normal. Although, looking back, making models with your tank—bred, Krogan, pseudo—adopted son in between battles to save humanity is a little unusual I suppose.

And _then— _you won't believe this— he started feeling strange, so we headed to Tuchanka to get him looked at and it turns out he was going through _puberty_. Pubescent Krogan. Fantastic. So Wrex tells us that the way to sort it is for him to undergo _'The Rite_'. I don't know, the Krogan and their endless freaking rites. Grunt was prepared to try and deal with it on his own, the big idiot. Of course we did it. He needed a krant, so me and Zaeed headed out with him. It was… eventful. It ended with taking down a Thresher Maw. Would've been nice if Wrex had mentioned that beforehand. Man, I hate those things. And then after _that_, we had to deal with a load of jackasses from Clan Weyrloc. They wanted Grunt to join, but were still going to treat him like shit—like a freak. So naturally we took them down.

Afterwards, Grunt officially became _Urdnot Grunt_. Wrex was more than happy to have him and it meant Grunt had something to come back to if we made it out of the Collector Base. Hell, I'll say it— I was damn proud of him that day. He took point with me most of the way through the so called suicide mission, couldn't have done it without him. Grunt is a fucking force of nature in a fight— give him a couple of centuries and… well, I wouldn't want to be on the other side in that fight. After we blew the base to Hell, Grunt headed back to Tuchanka— Wrex promised to keep an eye on him for me. Not that he needs it— and he'd throw such a strop if he found out.

Yeah… I miss Grunt. Crazy bastard.

-Constructive criticism always appreciated.

I'm thinking about doing the rest of the ME2 crew as well, but who knows.  
I was a little worried about the conversational style of the dialogue- hopefully it makes sense.  
Thanks for reading.-


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